For $2,500 a week, we can maybe promise you… Nothing!

If you have a vested interest in Alzheimer’s research — like those covered in recent SJ-R articles (“Alzheimer’s at a crossroads”,”Drug may help slow disease’s progression”) — you should prepare to be disappointed.

Drug companies have invested billions researching drugs that suppress or remove amyloid plaques on the theory that these “gum up” the victim’s brain. The problem is, they work. Clinical trials have had to be abruptly halted when patients taking the drugs markedly worsened or died.

Now the developers are hoping the remaining drugs in trial will “hit their target.” Meaning, if they reduce plaque without killing or making the patient worse, they can declare victory and start selling them at $1,000-$2,500 a week. Note that definition doesn’t include curing or stopping Alzheimer’s.

A competing theory, published last year in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, posits amyloid plaques, rather than causing dementia, are actually the body’s last ditch effort to prevent destruction of the brain’s neurons.

What is suddenly triggering this amyloid response, and why is it accelerating? Three co-factors are implicated. First, our hysterical avoidance of essential natural fats; compounded by their replacement with carbohydrates, which are inflammatory; and finally, the zealous prescribing of statins to lower cholesterol, compromising this essential nutrient’s ability to transport fat to the brain without being damaged in the bloodstream.

If that’s a correct analysis, the solution to the accelerating rates of dementia — and also obesity, diabetes, celiac, and other “diseases of civilization” — over the last 30 years isn’t another expensive lifetime drug prescription.

The solution would be for the USDA to stop pushing commodity grains, especially processed flour and high fructose corn syrup, the FDA to recognize statins as the neurological equivalent of the thalidomide fiasco, and the ADA — the certifying organization for dieticians — to stop accepting major funding from cereal, candy bar, soft drink, and drug companies.

In other words, you’re on your own. Hold the muffin. Have some coconut oil.

11 Responses to For $2,500 a week, we can maybe promise you… Nothing!

I think you have it right! Good luck on getting the USDA and grain processing companies to support you. Even the diabetes organizations will not see this. It is all whole grains and low fat mantras. Still you have my support.

Hence the closing — “you’re on your own.” Although that’s not exactly true given the growing crowd of low carb/paleo/real food folks out there who are finding that they’re not alone.

The USDA, FDA, ADA, et al will be the last ones to party. Once they have no choice, they’ll rush to the front of the line and insist that they’re the leaders. As always.

BRAVO Jerry! (I just wish more folks would *get* this!) I CAN report one success — a dear girlfriend (in her 50s) finally got OFF statins! (Who says obnoxious haranguing doesn’t work?!) And onto low carb, although she’s still, alas, doing low fat and low cal… but off grains and industrial lubricants (“vegetable” oils… {frown}). She has started losing weight already and feeling way better! Amazingly, she’s an MD (was a psychiatrist), so she’s having to push upstream against a couple decades of very heavy brainwashing…

(I also read somewhere that there’s a strain of research hinting / finding / looking into the idea that the amyloid plaques are actually not made in the brain but in the body, and are usually **when the liver is not staggering under the heavy load of poisons and crap we force it to detox** disassembled by the liver before they ever get into the brain. It always comes back to diet and what toxins we expose ourselves to!)

Congratulations on the save, Elenor. Even more amazing in that she was an “expert” already (MD).

This was written by Stephanie Seneff, who was one of the authors on the EJIM article I cited. The article in your link seems to be a summary of the same information written for a lay audience. I had to read the EJIM article several times and Google about every third word for it to sink in! This is much more accessible read for anyone without a PhD, which M.s Seneff has. Thanks for the link!

Hi. I don’t know much about this blog stuff, but is there any chance of you putting a facebook ‘like’ button on your site. Great article that I’d like to share.

Thanks

Sorry — So far I’ve remained agressively oblivious about Facebook, and still have a goal of making it to my grave without a facebook account. So I can guarantee I know less about like buttons than you do about blogs!

I wish I could get my 75 year old mother to ditch the freakin’ grains and try the coconut oil. She’s already had her colon removed … carries her crap around in a bag … and has had 4 follow up surgeries in the last 3 years. She’s also been losing it mentally. Both her parents died of Alzheimer’s, so I fully expect Mom to totally lose it eventually too … if her gut doesn’t kill her first.

I may miss bread, pasta, pizza, etc., but I just think about what all Mom has been through and the cravings are gone. I have a nice cup of tea with some coconut oil instead.

Very sorry about your mom. If you’ve followed Tom’s blogs for awhile, we’re kind of walking the same path. Dad’s road was already pretty much set by the time Tom started looking into all this, so there wasn’t the added frustration of a loved one refusing to try a different approach.

Have you tried to get your mom to add least just add the coconut oil?

Ultimately, all you can do is make the offer, and then make peace with their decision.

I don’t mean to make excuses, but I wrote this for submission to my local paper after a couple of the usual “maybe we’re on the verge of a cure” articles — meaning another prescription drug — and was fighting a 300 word limit on their letters to the editor, so I simply didn’t have room to add a specific citation. I usually post here right after submitting to the paper.

Then I got a reply saying they’d reduced their letter limit to 250 words(!), and I ended up agonizing over that exercise — brevity is not a natural tendency for me.

I’ve inserted the link in the post now. The link in Bob Johnston’s comment to Ms. Seneff’s article is an explanation of the same material geared towards a lay audience, and I’d recommend that instead for anyone more interested in the bottom line analysis instead of the specific physiology and biochemistry.

We’ll see. I was, like in many things, shaking my head at how the FB IPO turned into another madness of the crowd episode. First rule of investing — you can love a company, but you should never love a stock!

I am interested in the subject because my grandma (93 years old) lives in the assisted living facility last 4 years with Alzheimer wondering why her parents do not visiting her.
I agree with you that statins are a poison without benefits, it sure contributes to the rise in the dementia in population because people have more memory problems on such drugs, but it is not the root cause. My grandma never took statins, and she never tried to limit fats in her diet, the whole concept is quite alien to her (she lives in Russia and never avoided bread as well). I am hopeful my mom will do better because I convinced her to go LC one year ago. Will see.

Yes. Our grandmother (Dad’s mother) started slipping into dementia/Alzheimer’s in her late 80’s and that was before statins arrived on the scene. So, as Tom has said, genetics loads the gun, behavior pulls the trigger. Dad’s Alzheimer’s was diagnosed a bit after he turned 70, and he’s been in care facilities since he was around 75. You can’t say in an n=1 sample that his was compounded by statins, but when we’re talking millions of people, there’s a lot of triggers being yanked on.

Did you mean to write “Fist rule of investing”? Love a stock and get a knuckle sandwich. Certainly apropos, but a bit startling. I read it the first time as “First rule”, but I admire contributions to more colorful language.

Good grief! Another reminder that spell checker can’t read minds. Fixed it. Thanks for the catch.